{"id":4750,"date":"2021-11-02T14:21:02","date_gmt":"2021-11-02T18:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazine.alumni.ncsu.edu\/?p=1054"},"modified":"2024-02-01T16:28:11","modified_gmt":"2024-02-01T21:28:11","slug":"a-shot-in-the-arm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/2021\/a-shot-in-the-arm\/","title":{"rendered":"A Shot in the Arm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
In early August, NC State senior Lilly Fowler got a call she wasn\u2019t expecting. The voice on the other end identified herself as Charlene Wong, chief health policy officer for COVID-19 at the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. \u201cShe goes, \u2018I wanted to tell you, you\u2019ve won a million dollars.\u2019 So I hung up on her,\u201d Fowler says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe calls me again. I\u2019m like \u2018Oh, god. These scammers.\u2019\u201d But it wasn\u2019t a scam. Fowler, who is from East Bend, N.C., was the final winner of the N.C. Summer Cash Drawings, the state\u2019s lottery to encourage people to get the COVID-19 vaccine. It still took another call, a call from Wong to Fowler\u2019s father and a FaceTime in which Wong had to virtually show Fowler the offices of DHHS to prove the legitimacy of Fowler\u2019s win. \u201cI\u2019m like, scammers aren\u2019t buying these large Department of Health and Human Services signs,\u201d Fowler says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The vaccine lottery, Fowler concedes, was not a motivator and was not even something she knew about. After taking some time to consider the shot and talking it over with her family, she decided to get vaccinated because she was coming to Raleigh in the fall. Fowler graduated with an associate\u2019s degree from Surry Community College in 2020, transferred to NC State as a junior last year, but ended up taking classes remotely because of COVID. Fall 2021 was her first full semester on campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n